Sep

17

EMusic to Sell Audiobooks

September 17, 2007 |

In an interesting move, EMusic is going to start selling audiobooks tomorrow. Right now, audible.com is really the only player in this market (as it is the provider for audiobooks in iTunes), but its content is heavily DRMed. EMusic, on the other hand, is going to go the same route it did with music files and will offer audiobooks as simple, yet watermarked, mp3s.

Some companies are just dipping their toes into the market, but Penguin is going all out and will offer every book it offers on iTunes on EMusic.com. Others, of course, have a completely backward philosophy:

“I think it’s a mistake,” said Brian Downing, publisher of Recorded Books, which is more than 25 years old and whose authors include Philip Roth and Jodi Picoult. “I think our obligation to protect the files and protect the authors is a big one.”

I think it is your obligation to make sure you are selling your author’s works. You can’t protect anything anymore today. You just have to make buying it a heck more convenient than stealing.

EMusic’s CEO seems to have the right approach:

“Our customers don’t steal music,” said David Pakman, chief of eMusic, of the company’s 300,000 subscribers, who pay from $9.99 (for 30 songs) to $19.99 (for 75 songs). “A lot of them are technically sophisticated, but they’re not prone to piracy.”

The prices on EMusic will be lower than audible’s. However, for this to be a success, EMusic is going to have to raise its profile a bit more and spend some serious money on advertising this new service.

Technorati tags: , , ,

Share This

Related Posts

Comments